Now That I Know
by HecateA
Summary: Starring a little girl obsessed with mermaids, a college drop-out who nearly gets drowned by one, and an adult whose over them. Oneshot. Written for the PJO Ship Weeks.


**What a better day to star the PJO ship weeks than Canada Day? None that I can think of! So this year's list is actually pretty long. For those who missed it, we've got weeks of ships (full list at bottom of the fic) coming down on the fandom. I'm starting it off with Sally+Poseidon or Sally+Paul because you've got to admire the genetic matchup of Sally and Poseidon for creating Percy and the fun dynamic they have, but, come on, _Paul. Paul. Rocks. _Anyways, enjoy the fic!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters used in the story, or the description of mermaids. TW: abuse. **

**Ship Week: Sally and Paul or Sally and Poseidon. Next week (July 7-12): Tyson and Ella. **

* * *

**Now That I Know**

* * *

Sally Jackson was born in a hospital in New York, but she'd argue that the real her was born in a book store where her father gave a new life to used books while her mother, a tenure professor, tried to determine where and when William Shakespeare had been born and raised.

It might have been the parents or the place itself that made her the little girl she was, her parents would often reflect. Her father had fed her Shakespearean monologues that she'd memorised and would recite around the store to the amusement of customers. There was a shelf of children's literature in the back where Sally could often be found curled up between shelf and wall with a big book of fairy tales or another smaller one of myths opened on her lap. She taught herself how to read with the former- the first sign of it being when she approached her mother, Dr Laura Jackson, and declared that really, The Little Mermaid was a sad story.

"I hope that some mermaids have a better happy ending," Sally had once told her mother.

"I hope so too sweetheart," Dr Jackson had said.

"Especially the ones that I know," Sally said.

"The ones that you know?" Her mother said with a frown.

"Well, not know," she corrected herself. "The ones that I see."

"See? Where do you see mermaids, love?" Dr Jackson had smiled.

"In the ocean," Sally said in a tone that implied the 'of course'. "At Montauk. On weekends. When we go."

"Love," Dr Jackson said kneeling down, about to complete the hardest task that she as a mother could be tasked with; that of telling her child that fairy tales weren't real while letting childhood run its course. "Are you sure that there are mermaids in Montauk?"

"Yes," she said. "What else could it be?"

"Well, next time that we go we could ask Don what kind of whales and dolphins swim up to the beach," Dr Jackson said, referring to a lifeguard that happened to be a family friend. "But I'd think that it's a marine animal and not a mermaid."

"But no marine animal has a tail and long hair and hands to wave with," Sally had shrugged before completely dismissing her mother's skepticism and going off to find a new book.

* * *

"But daddy, I don't _like _the subway," Sally said throwing what could appear to anybody else as the obligatory tantrum that any self-respecting four year old child in the history of four year olds threw. She was sitting straight down on the stairs of the subway station and was using all her little weight and a hand firmly gripping the railing to refuse to get up.

"I know sweetie, but we're going to go out for supper with Mummy and Uncle Rich," he said attempting to soothe her. "It'll be nice. You haven't seen Uncle Rich in a long time…"

"Daddy I can't go in the subway," she said desperately. Her voice hushed to a (still desperate) whisper. "There are _monsters _underground…"

"I'll protect you from the monsters," Jim Jackson –the man who filled old bugspray bottles with water and labeled them as 'Monster Spray' to get his little girl to sleep during her fits of insomnia- said.

"No you can't, these are big ones," Sally said. "I once saw a boy with a sword and big arms and he was swinging the sword and he had really really big arms daddy but he couldn't make the monster stop and so the monster ate-"

Her father had picked her up, buying into the school of thought that children had big imaginations and sometimes had to be forced to do certain things despite certain fits, and walked her down the stairs as she protested and cried.

* * *

Though he was starting to get really tired of taking care of her, by asking in front of his girlfriend thirteen-year-old Sally had convinced Uncle Rich to drive her out to Montauk beach for a day. While her uncle grumbled about the heat as his girlfriend lathered sunscreen on every inch of his skin, Sally got out of her street clothes (she'd been wearing her bathing suit underneath), grabbed her equipment bag (already prepared) and sprinted over the burning hot sand and to the sea. She looked at the horizon- all waves.

She pulled her old notebook out of her messenger bag. It was a plain one-subject ruled notebook with stickers of fish on the front.

She'd been tiny when she'd made the charts it held. Every weekend when her parents would drive her down to Montauk with a picnic basket and much reading material for the two of them, she'd document mermaid sightings. She'd done it since she was four. She didn't know where she'd gotten the idea to make a _chart _at that age (the somekind-of-researcher mother?) but she'd done it. She wasn't sure how legitimate this was, but she'd put hours and dates next to her short descriptions of what she'd seen. There had to be _some _method to her madness, right? Right? And so as far as she could figure, if the two year pattern stuck, there should be _tons _of mermaids passing through in the start of June. That would be now.

And so she stood on the waves, looking out at the sea.

It had become suddenly important for her to see the mermaids in late December of last year, when she'd kept seeing these massive black dogs walking around New York. And she didn't mean Saint Bernard dogs like all her friends had suggested- she meant giant hounds, straight out of a nightmare or the gates of hell. She'd gone some time without seeing these monsters. She'd stopped looking at the sky, going to Central Park as much, and hanging out by the big touristy attractions in New York –the statue of liberty, Times Square, the Empire State Building… But they'd started reappearing again. So she'd started investigating and she'd started seeing all the old monsters again –the beautiful girls camouflaged in the trees or ponds of Central Park who would wave and giggle at joggers, the one-eyed muscle men wandering about with pouty faces and questionable clothing, the snake women who would hang out at the chic restaurants and excused their lisps as foreign accents to everyone else, the sphinxes that people called stray cats in the subway…

And it freaked her out, this idea that she was losing her mind. And so she'd thought to herself _hey, what's the one creature that I haven't seen in a while? Mermaids. _And that was probably because since her parents had died she hadn't gone to Montauk –not for a weekend activity, not for any kind of vacation if mermaids were real. If they weren't, that meant that she was just hallucinating fantastic creatures left and right and probably needed serious psychiatric help that no way in hell she would ever get with Uncle Rich around or her hopes of college still shining in the distance (when Sally said distance she _meant _distance- her cause was a sad one.

So here she was, and here she hoped to prove herself that she wasn't crazy and something was out there.

She stood in the waves for the entire day. When Rich's girlfriend told her to come get lunch, she said that she wasn't hungry and Rich told her not to bother, that she was a difficult child. When some guys wolf-whistled at her she ignored them and didn't even bother to tell them what to go off and do to themselves. When Uncle Rich told her to come get something to eat or God help him, she told him that she hoped He would and that she really really _was _okay. She stood and watched, a new column added to the chart (June 15th 1987) and her pencil poised.

The pencil had nothing to write down.

No mermaids. No sign of anything but surfers, tourists, and some guy who tried selling ice cream to her about five times.

On the car ride back as Rich talked about how much she'd wasted her day, Sally nearly agreed with him. She leaned her head against the cool window and gripped the old notebook with the fish stickers, though she wasn't sure why she hadn't thrown it out into the ocean.

* * *

Uncle Rich may not care much about her, but that was only as long as she was heard and not seen, and that his supper was. Unfortunately for today, his supper wasn't anywhere to be seen and Sally hadn't had any particular intentions, goals or plans to make it. She didn't even know if there was food(slash)grocery money left in the apartment.

"Wake up you lazy bitch," he hissed. She smelled alcohol on his breath.

She'd fallen asleep over a oh-so-comfortable mattress of loose-leaf paper, open textbooks with broken spines and notebooks whose spiral lining had imprinted on her cheek.

"What have you been doing since you got home?"

"I had a shift," she said trying to choke back a yawn and force the sleep from her voice all in one go. "I only got home an hour ago and then I started studying for exams and then-"

He slammed his hand down on her desk. The sound vibrated in her head. Great, she had a migraine coming along too.

"I believe that the real answer is _not my chores," _he said.

"I'm sorry, I'll go do it," Sally said pushing herself up. With a hand on her shoulder he pushed her down.

"And you think that that will make it up?" Rich said.

"What else do I have to do?" Sally said. Now that she'd noticed the dull ache, her head had started to pound- as if she'd been drinking. Pound. Pound. Pound.

"Don't sound so ungrateful. I had no responsibility to take you in when you were a child and-"

Pound. Pound. Pound.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have and it would have saved us both a world and a half of trouble," Sally snapped.

"Yes it would have," Uncle Rich said, seething and slamming his fist down on the desk at every word, except for the last when Sally got clubbed in the shoulder. For a second Sally was sure that she'd pushed some kind of unspoken limit that had always existed and that she'd always acknowledged as the time to stop sassing him, no matter how angry, and to bend down and be a maniable little slave girl.

He turned away though, and ran a hand through his hair. "You see what you make me do?"

"I didn't make you do anything," she said. "You're a short-tempered alcoholic."

He turned back, just as mad as he had been ten seconds earlier except his eye was caught by one of the notebooks that had fallen to the floor. Or more precisely its content.

He picked it up and turned very pale and then very red before showing Sally a drawing in the margin.

"What's this?" he asked, his index boldly pointing to the doodle of a salivating dog-seal hybrid.

"It's- a- a thing," she said. "Just a- just a picture."

"A picture of what?" He asked, squinting.

"Of a monster," Sally said. More precisely of her English Lit substitute teacher.

He threw the notebook at her and it bounced off her elbow.

"What did I tell you about your- your monsters?" He asked.

"That I shouldn't draw them," Sally said. She'd been wrong earlier. _Now _she'd crossed the line.

"That they. Aren't. _Real," _he said, throwing the notebook against the wall.

Sally had braced herself to get pushed around some more, but it appeared that the mix of alcohol and hunger was a good one for her uncle. He left her alone. She could nearly cry of relief as she got down on her hands and knees and picked up her notebooks and various school supplies. She found the notebook that had betrayed her. If she'd been studying one lesson further, her uncle would have spazzed at an entire page of various snake-ladies who -as he so kindly pointed out to her- weren't real. Just another electrifying hallucination to spice up Sally's life.

There were times when sarcasm didn't cut it in the field of dealing with her illusions and when satirizing and self-desiccating just didn't hold a candle to the phantasmagoria that was her life. There were times when she wanted to knock on a hospital door, offer them her wrists and ask them to take her to the nearest straight jacket. There were times when she felt like she wouldn't put up that much of a fight if Rich lost his (proverbial) cool and hit her because _what was wrong with her of course monsters weren't real. _

* * *

She'd jogged down the amphitheater steps to go ask her professor a question, but he took hold of the conversation before Sally had opened her mouth.

"Bravo, Miss Jackson," Dr Holman told her. "You've seen your results, I assume? A compelling analysis of _Frankenstein, _compelling indeed,and an even more successful short story."

"Thank you, sir," Sally said.

"Your career goal is to eventually become a writer, yes?" he said.

"As soon as possible," Sally nodded.

"I would send that short story to a publishing house as soon as I could if I were you," he said. "It was truly… terrifying. I must say that lately I have much preferred psychological thrillers to the monsters and what have you, but your blend of the two? Outstanding. Where on _earth _did you get your inspiration for such gruesome beasts?"

_Well professor I was walking down the street the other way and since I am an undiagnosed raging schizophrenic…_

"It just comes to me," Sally smiled. The tug of her lips was nearly painful, but some aches and pains you got used to- and in this case, you perfected.

* * *

Sally wadded into the turf up to her ankles. The water was cool as opposed to the blazing sun.

"Jackson!" Brad –who was already in up to his mid-torso called. "Quit being a wimp and get in!"

"Me a wimp?" She called out before running out into the water and diving in. She swam along the sandy ocean floor with her eyes squinted open before reaching Brad and grabbing his ankle. He freaked out and tried to kick her off. She could barely contain her laughter until she resurfaced. Jen, Nolan, James, and Taylor were already killing themselves laughing when she emerged.

Brad's ego was stung but he was still pretty pleasant for the hour that they spent floating around and talking about all the wild things they'd do while they were at Montauk for the first week of summer.

"I'm going to be wrinkled like a prune," Jen said. "I'm going to head out. James, you too."

"Me why me?"

"Because you're in charge of supper and I'm starving."

"If supper's close I'm going to head out," Nolan said.

"Same."

"Ditto."

Sally was about to agree when she saw something from the corner of her eye. She'd heard a splash. There was nobody else as far in the water as they were. Nobody to make that splash…

What date was it today? June 10th?

She bit her lip.

Early summer...

If she was going to be crazy, she may as well let the madness run loose. Especially now that college was no longer an option, her only relative was dead and her future was grim and miserable at best.

"I'm going to swim a bit more," she said.

"Sal?" Jen frowned.

"I just, I'm just going to swim," Sally said. "For a bit."

"Why?" Nolan asked.

"No why, just will," Sally said. "You guys can head on back."

"You shouldn't be swimming this far out alone," Brad said.

"I'm a big girl," Sally said. "I'll be fine."

They left the water and when they were far enough away she swam out, towards the splash. She swam under the water, forcing her eyes open despite the saltiness of the water. She couldn't see much- a few fish, some branches on the ocean floor…

Out of nowhere something grabbed her foot. By instinct she started kicking like crazy, but she couldn't dislodge whatever had grabbed her. At first her mind raced- shark? No, there hadn't been a shark attack in New York in years. Besides, her limb was still attached. Plus the grip was... not an animal... it felt like… like… fingers. Human fingers.

She twisted desperately, eyes wide open. Hanging on to her ankle for dear life was… no… no way…

Long spindly limbs, dark skin, luminescent eyes, clumpy hair floating in the water and -of course- the... the... well, where the legs were supposed to be there was a thing that was definitely not legs and… it was… a mermaid.

Pulling Sally down.

Drowning her as if she was a sailor in an old story.

As soon as she clued in the mermaid smiled viciously, showing a row of shark teeth that just freaked Sally out more. Since freaking out was equal to adrenaline, she struggled more and tried to reach down to pull the fingers away from her ankle but the mermaid just _bit her. _Which, with the shark teeth and all, hurt. A ton. She was running out of oxygen fast. She was starting to choke up when she felt the grip on her ankle release and a new hold, just as strong but less threatening, established itself on her upper arm. And this one pulled her _up. _Not down. This was important progress. Sally saw light again and... and…

She took in the biggest gulp of hair that she could as soon as her face broke the surface, and exhaustion took her over. Thankfully someone was holding her up. He even caught her head when it flopped.

"Hey- you okay?"

She managed to turn her head to see whoever had pulled you out of the depths-a man with black hair and these absurdely and gorgeous green eyes. Correction- a very _nice _man…

"If you're another mermaid or an angel I'm going to get _very _mad," Sally managed to say.

He laughed.

"Good guess, but neither or. Let's get you back to shore," he said.

She tried to paddle and swim and generally _not _be dead weight, but he told her to stop and try to keep her hand above the water if she insisted on being useful.

Once she hit the shore, she stumbled to her feet and started walking, clutching her hand to her chest.

"Sit down," he said. He wasn't at all breathless, as if he hadn't just rescued her.

"I'm okay," she said.

"Sit down," he insisted. "You were bitten."

"Yeah by a-" Sally lost her trail of thought which opened the window for the man to force her down.

"A mermaid," he said. "Yes. It will be punished."

"What?"

"It'll be punished. It shouldn't... not in the middle of migrations..." he sounded too angry to make full sentences or finish an idea before moving on to the next, but he got "give me your hand" out. She did. Blood dripped to the ground. The edge of her bite wasn't smooth but ragged. She couldn't see how deep it was on account of all the blood pissing out, and then of the fact that the man pointed somekind of triple lance onto the wound and it... healed... no, not a triple lance, what was wrong with her? It was a trident.

"There. Better. Where are you staying, who are you with?"

"Friends," she said looking at him in shock. She didn't feel any pain at all. "In that cottage over there..."

"Good, go to it," he said before turning away and marching down the beach. Someone else who saw a mermaid and registered what it was and accepted it... holy smokes...

"Wait!" Sally said springing to her feet. Sand stuck to her wet legs and he turned around.

_Last time you did something because you thought you were crazy you nearly got drowned, _she told herself. Another part of her said, c_arpe diem, I nearly got drowned by a mermaid, I have the right to be pissed off and irritated. _

"You mean to tell me that you saved my life and healed me with that... that magical trident you're holding and you don't even have anything to say for yourself?" Sally demanded.

He looked surprised by how candid she was. Sally crossed her arms- like she would if she were getting sassed by a customer who wouldn't pay up at the bar.

"What trident?" he asked snapping his fingers.

Sally arched an eyebrow.

"You're kidding me, right?" Sally asked. "The one you're holding in your hand. Now you're treating me like I'm stupid and on top of it all, you haven't let me say goodbye. Wow. Some lousy life guard or coast guard or whatever you are."

He arched an eyebrow back.

"You see through the mist? I mean, you see all of this?"

"Umm- yeah," she said.

"Interesting," he said. "Seems like I have some explaining to do."

"You think?" Sally asked crossing her fingers. "Start with the trident."

* * *

"So wait- this mist- is like a veil that turns myth things into normal-world things?"

"Yes," he nodded. It turned out that the explanations took a long time. So long that Nolan had come out looking for her, making sure she hadn't drowned or anything (Poseidon -that was his name- gave her a snarky smile but he'd already started to register what Sally's don't-you-dare glare was all about). She'd told him that she'd met an old friend and to leave them alone after he brought down two bears (Sally had suspected that she might need more, but she kept it low).

"And some people can see through it even if they're not gods or monsters or whatever else is out there?" Sally asked.

"Yes," he said.

"And I'm one of them."

"Yes," he said. She could tell by the hard, calculating look in his eyes that he was expecting her to run away screaming. She didn't. Even if he was crazy, it was good to know that there was another brand of crazy out there.

"How do you _spell _mist?" Sally wondered out loud. "Is it 'mist' like 'on a misty day' or something or is it M-I-"

"M-I-S-T. Exactly how you think it is," the sea god sitting in front of her said. "There's no bullshit in Greek mythology, it's straight up."

"I beg to differ," Sally said. "One of your myths involves a laughing vagina! _That's _bull!"

Poseidon burst out into a light, hearty laughter. "I'd nearly forgotten about that… man, that was… that was funny. No one's seen anything like it since, that's for sure…"

"That's deranged!" Sally said.

"Yeah…" he said. "I'd really have to catch up with her… Demeter probably knows where she is in the world..."

* * *

Poseidon promised to stick around for a while, so that Sally could go back in the water without the paranoia of being drowned by the Loch Ness Monster or whatever else was down there (she was planning on forcing more info on that out of him).

Sally wasn't really scared of the water. She just didn't want her only lead on this strange world that she saw disapear on her.

She managed to find him among the Montauk crowd at least once a day. Playing volleyball with whoever invited him to join a game, catching some waves, laying on the sand with a beer in his hand, at the evening parties or luaus or bonfires that other college kids hosted... Eventually Jen just had him come over for a campfire dinner at their cottage and though the stars had started sprinkling the skies and everyone else had gone to bed, Sally was still outside with him.

"I have a question," she said looking at the stars.

"That's exciting and new."

Sally shot him a look and he laughed.

"Sorry, carry on?"

"The constellations in the sky," she started.

"Sure."

"Are they actually..? You know... people? Put there forever for great deeds or great wrongs that they did?"

Poseidon looked up. "Yeah. Yeah they are all people..."

Sally breathed out in admiration. "Are they in pain?"

"I have no idea. I hope not. Come here, I'll show you my favourite," he said getting up and starting to scan the sky with his eyes.

* * *

"Can I ask a question?"

"Based on the precedents, sure," Poseidon said as they walked down a quieter part of the beach, away from the screaming children and sunburned tourists.

"Even if it's awkward?" Sally checked.

"I'm sure I've answered worst," Poseidon shrugged.

"Okay. So Athens..."

"Fuck no, not that," the god said sharply.

Sally burst out laughing so hard, she nearly cried.

* * *

He'd just finished explaining to her the process by which monsters were reborn. She ran a hand through her hair.

"You okay?" Poseidon asked. "You need a minute before I get to the gruesome stuff?"

"Yeah, please," Sally said. She exhaled deeply.

"It's a lot. I know. I'm sorry."

Sally shook her head. "All I'm wondering is 'why me?' Why can _I _see through the mist and not some world leader who could actually take the skill and make it useful? Why me out of all people, you know? What did I do? Is it genetic or..."

"Calm down," he said kissing her forehead. "It's just because you're exceptional, Jackson. That's it. Just learn to deal with that fact."

* * *

"I had a girlfriend who was driving in to New York for a job interview and I got her to bring these down", Sally said, dumping some college-ruled notebooks on his knees.

"Sure," Poseidon said.

"These are my notebooks from a class I took. World History before the XVIth century," she said. "We had a unit on prehistory, one on the Mediterranean -so Greece, Rome, Egypt and a tiny bit on Jerusalem, and another on China, one on India."

"Thank the fates I never had to suffer through anyone's education system," Poseidon said lazily. It blew Sally's mind how he could go from this ball of energy running all over the beach and asking if he could join every volleyball game in sight or catching some waves to this still bag of bones, laying on the sand with the sun tanning his chest. Not that she was complaining or anything. She didn't particularly prefer one to the other when it came to getting shoved off of docks and into the waves or getting to openly and shamelessly stare at his chest.

She knelt next to him and picked up her old notebooks.

"I want you to tell me how much of it is bull," Sally said.

"The education system? I'd say ninety-"

"No, not that. The course content. How much of what I was taught about ancient Greece and everything that comes with it- government, religion, geography, lifestyle- is not true." Sally said. "I mean, you were there and everything…"

He sat up and pulled off his sunglasses.

"Well, I can tell you that what you guys know about religion is pretty lame," Poseidon said.

"Yeah?" Sally said. "I mean, apart from the, you know 'they're only myths' scenario…"

"Yeah," Poseidon said. "_I'm _the coolest God."

Sally rolled her eyes and he pulled her down onto his lap, propped his chin on her shoulder, and opened her first notebook.

* * *

Things may or may not have escalated. Innocent questions about Greek mythology may have developed a friendship and the friendship may have grown nine heads like a hydra and started to eat at every single shred of normality that Sally knew until finally _yes okay she _had _made out with a Greek god _and _yes they may or may not be accepting the possibility that that would happen again. _It had started with mermaids, and now her life was definitely weirder. At least weird was better than crazy.

But since mermaids were at the bottom of this, and since he'd absolutely _adored _her childhood mermaid chart and confirmed that what she'd been seeing was a mass merpeople migration based on a religious pilgrimage of theirs, she had to ask one night as they lay under the stars.

"What are mermaids like?"

"Mermaids?" Poseidon asked.

"What? That's a valid question. You've answered weirder," Sally said defensively.

"I didn't mean it like that. I just thought that it would be a sore spot considering, you know, one tried to kill you," Poseidon said.

"They can't _all _be murderous," Sally reasoned.

"You're right," Poseidon laughed. He was quiet for a bit before he shifted on his side, propping his head up on one hand.

"Mermaids are... well, they'd pretty great. They have the fluidity of a dolphin but their scales are much more diverse. Green, blue, indigo even. Their eyes are like that too. I don't think you can see them like they are- your eyes aren't adapted to it- but underwater their eyes are bright and they have the purest colours you'll find under the sea. They're beautiful, Sally. Absolutely beautiful. Men or women, old or young, just to see them have their civilisation in Atlantis it's... it's breath taking. I hope I never grow so old that I stop seeing that. I really don't. They're part human, but they only have the best of humans. They're equally if not smarter. They make tools with absolutely anything. They have a complex society, a language twice as broad as English, art that would blow your mind if you could see it... and all of that without the influence of neighbouring societies or anything, not like humans or nymphs. They're strong. They're ferocious hunters, but they also have these deep, deep links with marine mammals... that's why some of them aren't scared of humans, eh? Because they remember mermaids. They manage to use both of their halves harmoniously when most sea gods still struggle to be amphibious. They're graceful, powerful, fine... Sorry, I'm getting carried away. I'm boring you."

"Tell me more about their language," Sally said right away. "And how do they communicate? Sound doesn't travel through water so..."

"Melons," Poseidon said. "They have tiny melons in their heads- melons being the part of a whale's body that gets used for echolocation..."

"Echolocation," Sally gasped. "Oh my..."

He went on for _hours _and _hours, _talking about anatomy and language and habitation and diet and gender roles and tools and the strange relationship between mermaids and humans and the social division featuring some merpeople who wanted to learn from ship wrecks and the other half who wanted to cause them and another division that wanted both...

And then it hit her, as she snuggled against Poseidon's chest and listened to his heartbeat and stories both at once.

She knew.

She finally knew, thanks to him, what her entire life had been about.

And it brought quiet, happy tears to her eyes.

* * *

Paul was sitting on the mite infested couch, starring at the crackling fire that Percy had lit earlier to try and warm up the old little cottage. Sally approached him hesitantly, not sure if she should call out first or touch his shoulder…

"You okay?" Sally finally called.

"Yeah, I'm good," he said, as if Sally had just woken him up.

That encouraged her. She sat down next to him and took his hand, playing with his fingers. Her engagement ring caught some of the firelight.

"You sure?" Sally said. "You know, when I found out about… about Classical Greece still being alive today I didn't buy it from the mouth of a god. I didn't buy it after seeing things my entire life. You can call me crazy. You can just pretend that I didn't say anything. That Percy didn't show you his necklace or minotaur horn or sword fighting techniques. You can drive back to New York right now. It's okay."

"I…" Paul scratched the back of his head. "I don't think you're a liar, Sally. I don't think you'd lie to me. You've always been so honest with me about so much. I don't understand why you'd start now, you know?"

"Alright," she said. At least he was talking. He'd been quiet all dinner, as if he'd been mentally too busy digesting what they'd told him about myths. Sally had told Percy not to worry and to give Paul time, and had sent him back outside to go wander around into the turf some more as _she _proceeded to worry.

"I appreciate the trust."

"But I still don't get it," Paul finished. Sally nodded.

"It took me a _long _time to understand how all the myths and all the pieces fit together," she said. "And even now Percy brings home stories and I..."

"No, not that," Paul said. "That... that I'll figure out, I guess. In due time... I'll wing it. What I don't get is how you were once with a Greek god and now you get to settle with me. I mean, mortals are at the bottom of the food chain right? And I'm the most mortal of the mortal..."

The words fell over Sally like a sheet of ice. Possibly because she'd never looked at things that way, but most likely because she'd never thought of it. She didn't let go of Paul's hands as she mulled it over, but clamped her fingers in the spaces between his when she had her answer.

"Poseidon was the key to a great big puzzle that had become my life," Sally said.

"Because you could see through the mist," Paul said as a quick fact check. "And you thought you were going crazy."

"Right," Sally said. "I had questions that I'd given up on, he had more answers than I could imagine. I also happened to meet him at a pretty dark time in my life. I needed answers on where I was going and what I was going to do with myself, and I subsided with answers on the world as a whole. But now that I know who I am and what I want and where I'm going, I'm not looking for anyone or anything like that anymore. I'm not looking for a hero. I'm looking for another dope with big questions who thinks about things and reads books to try and get an idea of what's going on and who'll never stop being in awe or being curious or being cute and silly and nerdy and overrall just as great. Who doesn't have a higher purpose than whatever he picks as his purpose. I'm not nineteen anymore. I don't need prince charming on a big white horse, I need the cute little stable boy who's got everyone's back. The most mortal of the mortals, if that's what that implies."

She quickly added, "But don't let that bruise your ego, you're my prince charming too."

Paul smiled. "I'll take stable boy if this hypothetical fairy tale that we're talking about is a Victorian-ish romance about the underdog getting the princess."

"This fairy tale is whatever you want it to be," Sally said.

"You're the writer," Paul said.

"Yes, but it's about time you tell _me _about some myths," Sally smiled.

"Alright," Paul said. "Underdog and Princess it is."

* * *

**July **

**29 - 06 **- Sally and Poseidon _or _Sally and Paul

**July**

**07 - 12 **- Tyson and Ella

**13 -19 **- Grover and Juniper

**20 - 26 **- Charlie and Silena

**27 - 02 **- Thalia and Luke

**August**

**03 -09 **- Free Week (author's pick)

**10 - 16 **- Free slash week (author's pick of a same-sex story)

**17 - 23 **- Free friendship week

**24 - 30 **- Chris and Clarisse

**31 - 06 **- Jason and Reyna

**September**

**07- 13 **- Jason and Piper

**14 -20 **- Frank and Hazel

**21 - 27 **- Calypso and Leo

**28 - October 4 **- Percy and Annabeth


End file.
